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PRESIDENT JUAREZ' GOVERNMENT AT CIUDADJUAREZ, NEAR EL PASO-I865-66.For more than a year, in 1865 and I866, the village ofPaso del Norte (now Ciudad Juarez), opposite El Paso,was the actual capital of the Mexican Republic. BenitoJuarez, the patriot President, with his Cabinet and a littleremnant of his army, had been driven from his capitalby the French troops and the Mexican adherents ofMaximilian, and were making a last stand on this frontier,the French troops having possession of the city ofChihuahua, only two hundred and twenty-five miles tothe southward.The writer happened at that time to occupy the mostimportant United States office on the frontier. Hespoke Juarez's own language well, and Juarez knewthat he sympathized as deeply with the republican causein Mexico as the M\exican President sympathized withthe cause of the Republic of the United States. OurGovernment had at that time no minister near the JuarezGovernment. I visited the President very often. Was itstrange if we held many conversations, in which eachconfided to the other his hopes and fears, as to the successor failure of the two simultaneous efforts then beingmade to destroy thf cvo greatest Republics in theworld-our own countries? In January, I866, I informedPresident Juarez that I contemplated a journeyto Washington City, and before I started he confidedto me a letter to the Mexican Minister, Seior Romero,and also one to his wife, who, with her two daughters,were then at Romero's house in Washington, refugeesfrom their own country.88